We’ve not conducted any secret recruitment into security services - Minister

The Minister of Interior, Ambrose Dery, has disputed allegations of secret recruitment of some 1,800 persons into the Police, Ghana Armed Forces and Immigration Services.

The Minister’s response is coming on the back of an allegation by the Minority led by its leader Harruna Iddrisu that the government had recruited 1,800 New Patriotic Party (NPP) supporters in the security agencies mentioned above.

Addressing a press conference last week, the Minority said: “The last time the public witnessed a public advert in accordance with the constitution and the public services requirements and regulation was in 2017. So we are asking how come in 2018, 2019, and 2020 there is no official public recruitment advertised giving notice to Ghanaian citizens to prepare themselves for recruitment into these important state institutions and agencies.”

But responding, the Minister said the training schools have asked recruits who successfully passed to return after the facilities were shut down temporarily because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“There is no ongoing recruitment. There was recruitment where the processes were complied with before the Covid-19 pandemic. So what happened at the time was that some of the trainees had reported to school whole others were on the way but because of the pandemic the schools were closed down.”

He added that “Recently under the auspices of the Presidential taskforce for COVID-19, there has been a roadmap on the reopening of schools starting with final years in the universities. Subsequently, it came to senior high schools and now junior high schools. In that programme, the training schools for the security agencies were involved. So those successful candidates from the recruitment which took place before the pandemic were asked to start reporting.”